The History of China - #198 - Mongol 15.1: The Toluid Revolution

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. From a revolution of hope and liberty to the infamous Reign of terror. You can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So search for the French Revolution today. Hello and welcome to the History of China. Mongol 15. The Toluid Revolution

Starting point is 00:00:48 The commandment of the Eternal God is, In heaven there is only one Eternal God, and on earth there is only one Lord, Genghis Khan. This is the word of the Son of God, Temujin. This is what is told to you. Wheresoever there be a Mongol, or a Naiman, or a Merkit, or a Muslim, wherever ears can hear, wherever horses can travel, there let it be heard and known. Those who shall have heard my commandments and understood them,

Starting point is 00:01:19 and who shall not believe and shall make war against us, shall hear and see that they have eyes, and see not. And when they shall want to hold anything, they shall be without hands. And when they shall want to walk, they shall be without feet. This is the eternal commandment of God. This, through the virtue of the eternal God, through the great world of the Mongol, is the word of Munkakan. To the lord of the French, King Louis, and to all the other lords and priests, and to all the great realms of the French, that they may understand our words. For the word of the eternal god, Tu Chinggis Khan, has not reached unto you, either through Chinggis Khan or others that have come after him. A certain man by the name of David came to you as an ambassador of the Mongols, but he was an imposter, and you sent back with him your envoys to Guyuk Khan. After the death of Guyuk Khan, your ambassadors reached this court. These two monks who have come from you to Batu,

Starting point is 00:02:18 but Batu sent them to us, for Munkakan is the greatest lord of the Mongol realm. Now then, to the end that the whole world and the priests and monks may be at peace and rejoice, and that the word of God be heard among you, we wanted to appoint Mongol envoys to go back with these your priests. But they replied that between us and you, there is a hostile country and many wicked people and bad roads, so that they were afraid that they could not take our envoys in safety to you, but that if we would give them our letter containing our commandments, they would carry

Starting point is 00:02:49 them to King Louis himself. So we do not send our envoys with them, but we send to you in writing these commandments of the eternal God by these priests. These commandments of the eternal God are what we impart to you, and when you shall have heard and believed, if you will obey us, send your ambassadors. And so we shall have proof whether you want peace or war with us. When by the virtue of the eternal God, from the rising of the sun to the setting, all the world shall be in universal joy and peace, then shall be manifested what we are to be. But if you hear the commandment of the eternal God and understand it, and shall not give heed to it nor believe it, saying to yourselves,

Starting point is 00:03:29 Our country is far off, our mountains are strong, our sea is wide, and in this belief you make war against us, you shall find out what we can do. He who makes easy what is difficult and brings close what is far off, the eternal God, he knows. The message from Monk Ikhayan to King Louis IX of France via Friar William of Ruburc, 1254. It is late August of 1246. Louis accepts the most powerful throne in the world, his rule uncontested, his reign absolute. It had taken nearly five years

Starting point is 00:04:05 and the tireless efforts of his mother, the great katuna Toragina, to secure his place, as the late Ogirei had notably despised his eldest son and passed him over in favor of his favorite grandson by his third son, Kochu, the prince Shiramun. At least as important as Shiramun's strong claim to the throne, not even to mention the potential claim of Guyuk's younger brother, Koran, who had been the personal choice of Genkis himself to succeed Ogedei prior to his death, was the fact that Guyuk had spent much of his life and career up to this point making enemies amongst his fellow princes. The bitterest and most intransigent of these was no less than his cousin, Batu Khan, lord of the Jochid line of the family and Khan of the Golden Horde that ruled the western marches of the empire. It had been the dispute between Batu and

Starting point is 00:04:50 Guyuk, in fact, that had seen the son of Ogedei sent back to Karakorum in chains to face the great Khan's punishment after Guyuk had publicly insulted and belittled Batu, his superior, while on campaign, which was potentially a capital offense. Ironically enough, it was, at least in part, Guyuk's arrest and recall back to the Mongol homeland that, far from resulting in his death, almost perfectly positioned the irascible prince to make his bid for power upon the unexpected, though if we're being honest, not that unexpected, death of his lord father in 1241. Or rather, it was Torrigin who did so on her son's behalf. With what some might call an unseemly haste in the wake of her husband Ogedei's passing, the interim leader of the empire called for the convening of a great

Starting point is 00:05:37 curl-tie at once to select the next great Khan, hoping thereby to catch enough potential dissenters within the family off-guard and thereby secure Goyuk's upset succession. In this particular goal, she would prove unsuccessful. As the Lord Khan of the Golden Horde, Batu's presence at the conclave was of great importance to the proceedings. By tradition, as well as the law of Genghis Khan's yasa, the Borgians' needs must first reach a quorum and then a consensus approval of the next leader for it to carry any legal weight. As such, usually the convening of a great curl tie would be delayed until the political horse-trading between the family branches could be conducted and concluded

Starting point is 00:06:14 in private, as had been the case in the private decision between the sons of Genghis to nominate Ogedei, the third son, as their father's successor, and with the final ceremony being little more than a formality. By rushing into calling the conclave before either quorum or consensus could be reached, Turgene was opening the door for dissent to grind any such proceedings to a halt, a door that Batu, who above all else despised Guyuk and wished to deny him the throne, gladly stepped right on in. Batu held no imperial pretensions of his own. He understood that he did not have the political capital to put his name forward as Ogire's potential successor, as not only had it been agreed upon that the rule of the empire would

Starting point is 00:06:54 stay solely within the line of Genghis's third son, but also that as the son of Jochi, his blood tied to the great Khan Genghis would forever be in question, and therefore a political liability. Instead, it was more of a personal grudge for him. Let anyone but Guyuk get the job, and if that proved impossible, well, then at least make it as annoying and as difficult and as drawn-out a process as possible. Why? Because screw that guy, that's why. This isn't to say, as the tale has often been told, that Batu had the power to unilaterally hold up the election of a rival indefinitely. Had he made it known that he outright opposed the accession of Goyuk, Horum could still have been reached without him,

Starting point is 00:07:35 and indeed, ultimately, it would be. Instead, Batu employed subterfuge and trickery to delay the election of his rival as long as possible, without ever actually saying that that was what he was doing. Rather, he claimed that he was suffering from a severe attack of gout in his legs and especially feet, making even simple movements all but impossible, and travel from the Russian steppes to Mongolia completely out of the question until the attack of the illness subsided. Then, of course, he'd be happy to make the journey, but he just needed for them to wait a while. By repeating this excuse, which was not at all unbelievable given the Mongol lord's predilection for rich foods and drinks, and in intemperate quantities of both, Batu was able to delay the curl tie time and again,

Starting point is 00:08:22 totaling a period of more than four years. While Batu hemmed and hawed and drew things out over the early 1240s, the other branches of the family certainly didn't just sit on their haunches and do nothing. Torugin Khatun worked furiously to gather the necessary support from the other elements of the Borjigins in order to overcome Batu's intransigence and thereby secure her son's eventual election over Sirmun, even without the support of the Golden Horde. This she largely accomplished, if accounts are to be believed, although they do paint a markedly unflattering picture of Turgene going so far as to call her ugly and mean. She achieved this through outright bribery and gift-giving.

Starting point is 00:09:00 Many of her late husband's ministers who pointed out that it had been Ogedei's will that Guyuk specifically not be selected, Turgene silenced by outright firing them, replacing them, as was her prerogative as yekekatun, with her own partisans. The most important of these would be the Lady Fatima, a captive Tajik or Persian taken in the course of Genghis' campaign against Khwarazmia, who had won the favor of Turgene and was appointed as essentially the Empress's Prime Minister. The chronicler Giovanni would later write, with a noted hostility to the very idea of women in politics, that virtually alone, Fatima had unfettered access to the Khatun's Gur, and that she, quote, became the sharer of intimate confidences and the depository of hidden secrets, and she was free to issue commands and prohibitions." Well, yes, Giovanni, that's literally in the job description. Could you quit being so weird about it? As the interregnum dragged on, and Batu's quote-unquote gout continued to quote-unquote plague him in a rather suspiciously unabating manner, further chaos threatened to unmake

Starting point is 00:10:03 Toregin's tenuous process towards gaining the consensus within the Bojigin clan she so desperately needed. The youngest, and last surviving full brother of Genghis Khan, the prince of the hearth Tamuga Ochigin, by this point well into his seventies, came forward, claiming that with no clear heir apparent, it should instead be him who filled the role of Great Khan that his brother had created. This, Tamuga claimed, would require no curl tie at all to confirm him, a claim that he seemed more than willing to back up with the full force of his own massive army, quite possibly one of the two or three largest armies in the whole empire, with some estimating its strength at over 100,000 soldiers.

Starting point is 00:10:43 It was a move so shocking and illegal by the very law of his own brother that it would be neither forgotten nor forgiven when the seat of the Kayan was at last filled. Still, Tamug's claim, dubious and easily cast aside as it was, seems to have shown enough of the Aborigines just how tenuous the peace of the interregnum was, and that it would likely shatter altogether, and soon, if no decision was arrived at quickly. The deciding factor would come from the line of Genghis's youngest son, Tolui, and its own matriarch, who had until this point remained studiously silent in the question of supporting one candidate over another, the princess Sorhaktani. A truly brilliant politician in her own right, and often considered one of the most

Starting point is 00:11:25 brilliant people, much less women, of her age and of all world history, Sorkhaktani sensed that this was the moment that she could win for her family, and most importantly her sons, a truly prestigious place in the new regime by placing herself in the role of kingmaker. A decade prior, upon the death of her own husband, Tolui, supposedly to save the life of an ailing Ogedei from evil Chinese spirits, Ogedei had offered to marry Sorhaktani to Goyuk, a proposition that was, in spite of their 16-year age difference, not at all unusual among the people of the steppe. Sorhaktani had then politely turned down the offer, citing the need to care for and protect her sons above

Starting point is 00:12:05 remarrying. And also, if she had remarried, that would potentially have given Ogedei and Goyuk a claim to her lands and titles, above those of her already grown sons. Now, however, she spoke in favor of Goyuk's accession. Her support for this claim to the throne would prove the final, critical piece of the puzzle that Torrigain needed to claim a quorum of the royal family, in spite of Batu's passive-aggressive filibuster. At last able to claim, plausibly, that a majority of the Borjigins supported her son's claim to the Kayanit over that of Sheremun, who she said was too young, or Hodan, Guyuk's brother, who she claimed was too sickly, which was a particularly ridiculous excuse given that Guyuk was well known as being even more sickly than his younger brother, and was also swiftly following his own father's path into crippling

Starting point is 00:12:49 and deadly alcoholism, and certainly over that of the ludicrous claim of Temuga, who was not only too old, but attempting to short-circuit the entire election system altogether. Turgene was at long last able to call the Great Kurultai together on the plains of the Altai, just a few kilometers outside of Karakoram itself. It was an affair that would see almost all the notables from far and wide, from every corner of the world, come together to raise Prince Guyuk up and acclaim him, however begrudgingly, as Great Khan in August of 1246. Not just Mongol princes and khans, but also, quote, emirs, governors, and grandees jostled among the same roads beside princes and kings. The Seljuk sultan came from Turkey. Representatives of the Caliph of Baghdad also arrived,

Starting point is 00:13:33 as well as two claimants to the throne of Georgia. The highest-ranking European delegate was Alexander Nevsky's father, Grand Prince Yaroslav II Veselatovich of Vladimir and Suzdal, who died suspiciously just after dining with Thorigen Katun. Among these great and notable lords from the four corners of the world also arrived a certain curious, and barely presentable, mission from the Pope of the Christian Europeans themselves, a 65-year-old monk called Carpini and his bedraggled, hopelessly undersupplied mission

Starting point is 00:14:04 to find and bear unto the lord of the Tartars a letter of greeting-slash-stern rebuke of Mongol treatment of Christians. And at long last, even a representative from Lord Batu, his elder brother and ruler of the eastern half of the Golden Horde, Ordakan. Batu himself still claimed that his gout made such travel impossible, though it seems far more likely that he, wisely, determined that putting himself under the direct power of his longtime nemesis would... not be good for his lifespan. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary

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Starting point is 00:15:32 Guyuk was 40 years old at the time of his accession, but with virtually no civil or administrative experience to speak of. He was, like most Mongol men of his era, an experienced warrior on horseback and battlefield commander, not a competent governor from a throne. In a short time thereupon, he'd find it an ill-fitting role for him indeed. He and Turgene had, in the course of the ceremonial offer-and-refusal session that preceded any legitimate enthronement, managed to finagle out of the assembled lords a promise that forever after, the office of Great Khan would stay in the line of Ogedei.

Starting point is 00:16:08 John Mann notes that this explicitly unmade one of Genghis Khan's own stipulations in his will that had made Ogedei his successor in the first place. Quote, This, in effect, counteracted Genghis's own will, which specified what should happen if Ogedei's direct descendants were unfit to rule. The secret history underlines the point with the verse, if they prove so worthless that, even if one wrapped them in fresh grass, they would not be eaten by an ox. Even if one wrapped them in fat, they would not be eaten by a dog. Is it possible that among my other descendants,

Starting point is 00:16:39 not even a single one will be born who is good? Now, however, they'd gotten a seemingly ironclad promise out of the Kurilthai, that the succession would always remain in the line of Ogre, It was a pledge that deliberately subverted words attributed to their lord and master, Genghis. The fallout of this new pledge would be swift and deadly. Turagin ordered that Tamuga Ochigin, for his impudence in trying to take the title of Great Khan for himself without the assent of the Kurultai, was to be arrested and tried and then immediately executed. Quote, Tamuga Ochigin had survived his encounter with the shaman Tabtangri when he was younger, but he did not survive this confrontation with his grandnephew.

Starting point is 00:17:28 In a secret trial, closely supervised by Guyuk in a closed gur, the male members of the family condemned him to death for attempting to seize the office of Great Khan by military force rather than election. End quote. This was as shocking as it was unprecedented. To willingly put to death any Mongol was a deeply disturbing idea at all. But the very blood of Genghis Khan? Whatever revelry the coronation and its associated weeks of pageantry must have had

Starting point is 00:17:54 swiftly faded back into a deep unhappiness with this new great Khan, who had with his very first actions already done much to subvert the holy law of Genghis. Tamago would be the first member of the royal family ever killed as a result of an internal power struggle, but his would prove far from the last. Interestingly, the shocking nature of Goyuk's decision to execute his great granduncle, and indeed much of his entire short reign, has been evaluated in a very different light in recent years than the tale presented by traditional histories. One such analysis by Ho-dong Kim's aptly titled paper, A Reappraisal of Goyeok-Khan,

Starting point is 00:18:34 put forth very convincing evidence that much of the starkly negative portrayals of Goyeok that were traditionally taken at face value were instead a carefully constructed, politically motivated historical smear job by his successors to justify and legitimize their own seizure of power that would follow Goyuk's death in 1248. Kim lays out the idea that, though shocking, Temuga's execution order was a necessary step by Goyuk to further his father's policy of attempting to re-centralize power back to the throne itself and away from the regional princes. Temuga had overtly moved against the electoral process and threatened military force against the Ogadade line. As such, he had to be removed from the picture. As for the shock and dismay at the action that undoubtedly coursed through the princes across the empire,

Starting point is 00:19:15 that was at least as much about them being disgruntled at the idea of their own personal power being heavily checked by the Great Khan as it was their stated reason of so revering the brother of Genghis. For all the years and efforts she had put into ensuring her son's election as Great Khan, as it was their stated reason of so revering the brother of Genghis. For all the years and efforts she had put into ensuring her son's election as Great Khan, Turgene's pleasure in her success was likewise short-lived. Gugakayan quickly went about dismantling and reversing virtually every policy she had ever put into place over the prior four years, and purged virtually all the ministers that she had hired on, replacing them with many of the very agents that she had fired after her husband Ogedei's death. Turgin's top agent and tax farmer in northern China, for instance, Abed al-Rahman, was quickly stripped of his position and subsequently put to death.

Starting point is 00:19:57 Guyuk further shocked his clansmen and subjects by denouncing the rule of his own father, Ogedei, declaring that he had been far too lax and weak in his reign, and that he, Goyuk, would be running a much tighter and harsher ship from here on out. His relationship with his mother was further strained, too, and then passed the breaking point when Goyuk used the excuse of his brother, Hodan, falling ill at his appanage in Karakitai, from which he would eventually die, to blame Turgene's longtime advisor and best friend, the lady Fatima, of using witchcraft against the prince. He issued a demand to his mother that she hand Fatima over to him for trial and punishment, to which Turgene repeatedly refused.

Starting point is 00:20:35 From Giovanni, quote, He sent again several times, and each time she refused him in a different way. As a result, his relations with his mother became very bad, and he sent a man with instructions to bring Fatima by force if his mother should still delay. End quote. Turgene apparently threatened to commit suicide if the deed was carried out, and at this point the record becomes pretty fuzzy. She may well have followed through on her threat, though that remains speculative. With typical Mongol aversion to mentioning death outright, Juzjani writes euphemistically that Turgene soon thereafter rejoined her husband. Somehow or another, within 18 months of her son's enthronement, Turgene Khatun was dead. Fatima's fate would be far worse. Rather than quickly and quietly getting rid of her, Glyuk instead submitted her to a

Starting point is 00:21:24 gruesome and torturous public ordeal. She was ordered to be stripped naked and brought before the Great Khan tightly bound in ropes. There she was kept in humiliatingly public fashion, starved, bound, nude, and subject to, quote, all manner of violence, severity, harshness, and intimidation, end quote, in an attempt to wring from her a confession of her supposed witchcraft against the royal family. Weatherford writes, quote, They beat her, and then flogged her with some kind of heated metal rods. Such a public torture may have been an appropriate treatment for a witch in European society, or for a heretic at the hands

Starting point is 00:21:59 of the Christian church, but it totally violated the practices of Genghis Khan, who slew his enemies and ruled with harsh strictness, but steadfastly without torture or the infliction of unnecessary pain. It seemed particularly contrary to Mongol tradition since it was directed against a woman. No precedent was known in Mongol history for any comparable spectacle. End quote. Though perhaps technically not quite illegal, as Fatima was not a Mongol nor married to one, but was instead a war captive, it was nonetheless yet another shocking breach of the spirit, if not quite the letter, of Genghis's laws by his grandson. At last, broken by unknowable days and nights of pain, hunger, thirst, and humiliation,

Starting point is 00:22:41 Fatima cracked and began quote-unquote confessing to anything and everything under the sun. Yes, she had bewitched Torrigin Khatun into befriending her and raising her to high office. Yes, she had similarly worked her black magics on other members of the royal family. Yes, she had magically sickened and then killed Prince Khodan. Though obviously a false confession gained under extreme duress and torture, it was all Guyuk needed to mete out a uniquely horrible fate on the poor woman. It was ordered that she have all of her orifices sewn shut, so that her spirit might not escape, and then be herself sewn into a felt blanket and tossed into a river to drown. Though undeniably awful. It is notable that Guyuk did allow Fatima the honor of being executed like

Starting point is 00:23:26 that of a Mongol noblewoman, that is, without her blood being shed. The campaign of terror and bloody purging did not end with Fatima's death. Rather, it accelerated. Gudik ordered his soldiers to hunt down and execute anyone even associated with the convicted witch. Soon thereafter, he turned his vindictive attention outward toward those few other remaining women who ruled pieces of the Mongol Empire that might threaten him. His uncle, Chagatai Khan, had died round about the same time as Guyuk's father, Ogade, and had likewise entered into a period of regency from his wife and the caretaker of their grandson and heir, Prince Karahulagu.

Starting point is 00:24:04 In 1246, Guyuk Khan overthrew the queen, Ebuskun, and replaced the minor Khan with his wife, and the caretaker of their grandson and heir, Prince Kara Hulagu. In 1246, Goliath Khan overthrew the queen, Ebuskun, and replaced the minor Khan with his uncle, Chagatai's brother, Yasumonka. By the way, both of these Chagatai figures, Kara Hulagu and Yasumonka, are different people entirely from the much more famous Hulagu and Monka of the Toluid line. Goliath turned his well to the estates of the Toluids, and the woman who had once spurned him only to later prop up his ascent to the throne, the princess Sorhaktani. Unable to outright depose the shrewd Keryid princess, as he had done Ebiskun, Guyuk instead contented himself in demanding that the Toluid Khanate surrender its warriors to the central armies of Guyuk Kayan

Starting point is 00:24:41 himself, neutering the princess and her sons, Manka, Kublai, Hulagu, and Arikboka, of their ability to directly challenge his primacy, should they so choose. Secure at last in his knowledge that his eastern front posed him no further threat, Guyuk turned then westward, and toward a long-awaited vengeance against his most hated rival, old cousin Batu. Batu had stayed well away from Karakorum leading up to the Great Curl's High of 1246, remaining firmly entrenched at his own stronghold, Sarai Batu, on the banks of the lower Volga, as it widened out into its Caspian Sea Delta. But that didn't mean that he'd remained silent on his cousin's succession. Much to the contrary, Batu had been vociferously denouncing Guyuk's

Starting point is 00:25:25 succession as illegal since he, the lord of the Golden Horde, had not been present for the decision. And never mind that he'd specifically delayed the process by years by outright refusing to come. Yet once the ceremony had been carried out, Batu had quit his Russian court and begun advancing slowly eastward at the head of his own formidable army. Ostensibly, in order to now formally and personally offer his submission and loyalty oath to the new Khan of Khans. But Guyuk was having none of it. That wasn't the Batu he knew. Instead, Guyuk suspected that his hated cousin planned to bring his army to bear against him directly in an attempt to overthrow and usurp the throne from him. Well, two could play at deception, two could play at surprise. And so, Goyuk assembled his own

Starting point is 00:26:10 massive imperial army, and began, under the guise of going on a hunting trip, and, um, also doing an imperial inspection of the Ili River region around Lake Balkosh and Zungaria, and, um, also going to prepare to renew the campaign against Europe, because why not? Goyuk and the imperial army began moving westward. Quote, in fact, as his subsequent actions demonstrate, the true purpose of this tour was to position himself unobtrusively in Djungaria for a surprise strike at his rival's territories, which lay further to the west. Once he reached Djungaria, Goyuk immediately set about reorganizing and expanding his force preparatory to the west. Once he reached Jungaria, Guyuk immediately set about reorganizing and expanding his force preparatory to the attack. By imperial decree, the Kayan ordered that

Starting point is 00:26:51 one man from every 100 Mongol households be enlisted as Badur Braves. Because the latter were an important element in the imperial guard, functioning as the Kayan's advance guard and as elite shock troops, it is clear that Guyuk was contemplating offensive action in the near future. Guyuk intended to meet Batu's army in the fields of Jungaria, and then, well, only the eternal blue sky could possibly know the outcome of what would follow. It's here that Princess Sorkhaktani secures her place in history as one of the greatest and most genius political power players of all time. She had long bided her time, and had with her every decision, and non-decision, secured for her sons a place close to the top, but not quite within such proximity to power that they seemed dangerous. It had long been sort of tacitly understood that, owing to Tolui's self-sacrificial

Starting point is 00:27:43 decision to trade his own life for Ogre's back in 1232, his family line was the unofficial second string of the potential claimants to the throne outside of Ogre's direct line of succession. If pigs ever did fly and the top job fell out of the Ogreds, it was understood that it would be the Toluids with the strongest and most immediate backup claim. Now, Sor Khatani perceived that a wholly unprecedented opportunity lay open to her and her sons. It was fraught with peril, and could just as easily prove her and her sons' ruin and swift downfall as it might anything else. But it was an opportunity that might never present itself again. The Great Khan was out of Mongolia, preparing, she knew through

Starting point is 00:28:23 her own carefully hidden network of informants, to attack Batu by surprise. She could, if she so chose, remove that surprise element from the equation. And if Batu then emerged victorious against Guyuk in the battle to follow, well, he would owe her a huge favor and, wouldn't you know it, the throne would be empty. How about that? In spite of the mortal danger that she and her sons would be in if she were discovered, Sohra Khaktani nevertheless dispatched in utmost secrecy a messenger to make with all speed and discretion for Batu's encampment at Al-Khamakh, just to the south of Lake Balkhash. The message delivered warned Batu, quote, Be prepared, for Ugyal Khan has set out for those regions at the

Starting point is 00:29:05 head of a large army, and that his advance westward was not devoid of some treachery, end quote. The two massive armies approached one another around the shores of Lake Balkhash, preparing themselves for what everyone understood by this point would be the most titanic clash in the history of the Mongol Empire. Some reports, rather obviously overblown for the sake of drama, state that Guyuk's army numbered more than 600,000. As the two forces prepared to square off in the spring of 1248, Guyuk encamped at a place called Khum Sengir in modern Xinjiang, on the banks of the Orungu River, about a week's ride from his own appanage's capital, Beshbarik, northeast of Orungi. And it was there that the great Khan, at 42 years old,

Starting point is 00:29:46 and having reigned for little more than a year and a half, died suddenly and under very mysterious circumstances. Some accounts claim that he was accidentally killed while sparring with a member of his army. Other accounts infer that he was secretly poisoned, either by agents of Batu or Sorkhaktani. Neither of these are out of the realm of possibility, but most authors have concluded it far more likely that his constantly frail health, raging alcoholism, and the grueling nature of the long ride westward just proved too much for the Kayan's fragile constitution, and he died from exhaustion and illness. The great westward campaign that he was personally to lead once Batu had been taken care

Starting point is 00:30:25 of was called off completely, and his body, on the order of his empress, was taken back to his appanage in Jungaria for burial. To be continued... or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.

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The History of China - #198 - Mongol 15.1: The Toluid Revolution

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